Tuition up, support down: Has college finally broken the bank? - Kirk Pinho, Crain's Detroit

Everyone knows college has become more expensive. But here's one more jaw-dropping statistic: An MET contract now costs a third more than the average Michigan family makes in a year. And that's just for one child. In 1995, a four-year MET cost $19,908, 54 percent of the median household income of $36,426. By 2012, the last year for which median family house income data is available, it cost $66,496, about one third more than the $50,015 the average family made that year. The MET, shorthand for Michigan Education Trust, was instituted in 1988 as a way to prepay tuition and mandatory fees for a four-year college degree while children are still young. A contract covers any of Michigan's 15 public universities. The cost of an MET stands as a stark proxy for what years of flat and declining state aid and rising university budgets have done to make a college education less accessible. http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20140810/NEWS/308109996/tuition-up-support-down-has-college-finally-broken-the-bank#